One question in sales conversations has always bothered me.
"What's your budget?"
I came up against it again this week.
I am currently looking for a YouTube editor as I go all in on content. I asked someone I trust for recommendations.
The first thing they asked me was: what's your budget? I said I did not have one. I just wanted to understand the options.
They pushed back and said I needed to set a budget first.
They were trying to help, so I mean that with respect.
But it highlighted something I see all the time.
In most founder-led businesses, budgets do not exist in the way people think they do.
They are not fixed.
They are flexible based on value.
When I am buying something like video editing, I do not know what good looks like.
I do not know whether I should be spending £50 or £500 per video.
How can I set a budget without understanding the outcome?
It is exactly the same when founders buy professional services.
They do not know what they need. They do not know what good looks like. They do not know what it should cost.
I had a client come to us recently.
They had been with the same accountant for ten years, paying a couple of hundred pounds a month.
Fees had never moved.
When I understood their situation and built the right solution, the number was ten times that.
If I had asked their budget upfront, they would have said £300 a month.
Because that was the only reference point they had.
It would have been the wrong number.
It is your job as the expert to show people what good looks like and what it takes to get there.
Most founders do not have a budget problem.
They have a clarity problem.
More to come,
Luke